guest blog by Sierra Club Nearby Nature Director and OAK Chair, Jackie Ostfeld; originally featured in the Huffington Post A walk in the woods will change a child’s life. That is, if she ever makes it to the trailhead. This week, President Obama unveiled the “Every Kid in a Park” initiative to connect children and their…
guest blog by Sierra Club’s Nearby Nature Director and OAK’s Chair Jackie Ostfeld I am pleased to announce that one of the founders of the Outdoors Alliance for Kids (OAK), REI, recently announced support for the Alliance with a gift of $30,000. The grant will help OAK meet our mission to connect children, youth and…
OAK October 2014 Newsletter OAK ECHO Across America Webinar On October 6, OAK’s State and Local Action team lead a webinar on OAK’s ECHO (Every Child Healthy Outdoors) Across Americainitiative. 32 participants joined us for the webinar to learn about the initiative and how to utilize the ECHO Across America Toolkit. Interested in joining OAK’s…
OAK September 2014 Newsletter OAK Annual Meeting and Advocacy Day – September 8-9, 2014 OAK’s Annual Membership Meeting in Washington, DC was a huge success! OAK members traveled from across the country to attend the meeting to share ideas and discuss how best to advance OAK’s goals. We were fortunate to have in attendance members from the…
Mark your calendar: Monday, October 6, 2014 from 3:00 – 4:30 PM ET Please join the Outdoors Alliance for Kids for the launching of our new Every Child Healthy Outdoors (ECHO) Across America Toolkit. OAK’s ECHO Across America Toolkit provides a suite of resources to advance opportunities to connect children, youth and families with the outdoors…
OAK guest blog by Susan Wirth, Outreach Director with Dimensions Educational Research Foundation and the Arbor Day Foundation originally published by Natural Start Alliance Connecting children with nature has a myriad of benefits that are receiving national attention. Research tells us that children who spend time in nature are more creative, less stressed, better able to concentrate, physically…
OAK member guest blog by Allen Cooper, from National Wildlife Federation originally published in Wildlife Promise Every parent who has ever watched a child play in nature has cause to rejoice. NWF’s guide Nature Play & Learning Places: Creating and Managing Places Where Children Engage with Nature shows how to design and manage nature play areas…
OAK August 2014 Newsletter SAVE THE DATE: Every Child Healthy Outdoors (ECHO) Across America Toolkit Webinar We are so pleased to announce the launching of OAK’s Every Child Healthy Outdoors (ECHO) Across America Toolkit. OAK’s ECHO Across America Toolkit provides a series of resources and templates to convene a meeting of leaders of organizations in your state…
guest blog by Sierra Club Nearby Nature Director and OAK Chair Jackie Ostfeld originally published in the Huffington Post The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just released the 2014 State Indicator Report on Physical Activity, and it’s bleak. The state by state analysis is a stark reminder that most kids in America are not…
OAK Member Guest Blog by Eric Bach and Irene Lam from Hipcamp Camping should be simple. If I want to get outside with my family next weekend and camp by the ocean, I should be able to. However, after spending hours of searching online to answer these questions, we realized it really isn’t so easy.…